Leica Oskar Barnack Award

In the photographer’s on-going, long-term study, he questions the current reorientation of the energy industry towards renewable sources, and problematises the resulting and complicated geopolitical, social and ecological effects, using the examples of copper, lithium and cobalt mining in Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia. In his multi-layered series he shows the landscapes and industrial complexes, while making the people working there the central focus of his work. 

The winning series was proposed by Italian LOBA nominator Antonia Benedetta Donato.

The Moldovan photographer’s personal story was the starting point for her touching portrait series: she grew up with her grandparents, because her own parents – like many others in her homeland – had to move abroad for economic reasons. In the last twenty years, nearly a quarter of the small country’s population have left. Guțu’s poetic and visual narrative asks about the meaning of roots and of home, which have changed significantly over the years.

The series was proposed for the LOBA Newcomer Category – directed at photographers up to 30 years in age – by Docdocdoc, School of Modern Photography, St. Petersburg